3 Good Reasons You’ll Love Tapestry of Grace

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Have I mentioned that the Tapestry of Grace curriculum is the backbone of my homeschool?

My family switched to years ago. And it was one of the best homeschool decisions we’ve made yet!

Tapestry of Grace Was Designed for Large Families

A mother of 6, who was desperate to bring some sanity into her school day, created Tapestry of Grace by linking as many subjects as possible to history.

The general idea behind Tapestry is that it’s a classical unit study designed for a large family. There are 4 levels to cover all the school-age children in the house.

  • Lower grammar is designed for non-readers, K-2 or 3rd grades.
  • Upper grammar is for elementary kids who read well, 3rd – 5 or 6th grades.
  • The dialectic level is aimed at children in the 6th or 7th – 8th or 9th grades.
  • Rhetoric is 9th or 10th grade through 12th grade.

Yes, you do have some overlap between the levels because children don’t mature at the same rate. Some children need extra time to bloom, while others are kicking to move quickly to higher levels.

But what these levels mean is that a large family, such as mine with kids from lower grammar through rhetoric, only has to use one curriculum to serve the needs of everyone.

I’m going to use year 4, 2013, as an example of how well Tapestry worked for my large family because I was homeschooling all 6 kids who were spread between kindergarten and high school.

And the curriculum didn’t just improve my homeschool. It decreased my workload as well!

My youngest children had assignments suited to them. I read their picture books aloud while they colored at the table. And they even had easy projects to enjoy and simple writing assignments that reinforced their language arts lessons.

The older elementary kids read excellent children’s books. They worked through age-appropriate history material. And they also had projects, map work, and fun writing assignments to complete.

Now Tapestry of Grace curriculum ramps up for dialectic and rhetoric students. So my older kids were given increasingly difficult assignments with questions to answer or research. Writing assignments gradually led to writing essays and thesis papers.

And we even had thoughtful discussion questions that led to amazing conversations over dinner!

To top it off, excellent teacher’s notes are given. I sat down, glanced over the week’s information, and was ready to teach all my kids, from the preschooler to the senior in high school.

This layered approach gives me sanity as I teach my kids.

Weekly Topics for the Whole Family

So each week has a general history topic. But as I mentioned earlier, the children study that topic at a level appropriate for their age group. I’m happy because all the kids studied the same topic, like World War 2.

The high school teenagers looked into details about Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and the concentration camps. However, my youngest children learned about Franklin Roosevelt and the Ships of Dunkirk.

I no longer jumped back and forth between two time periods like I had before we switched to Tapestry. And I didn’t have to worry about my little ones being exposed to topics they weren’t ready to handle.

Awesome Teacher’s Notes

tapestry of grace curriculum

The Teacher’s Notes you get with the Tapestry of Grace curriculum give you all the information you need to teach the weekly topics.

You’re given an encyclopedic overview of the topics, discussion questions for logic and rhetoric children, information about geography, fine arts, church history, literature, and more.

It’s a wealth of information!

My 4th child used the Tapestry Lapbooks when he was at the upper grammar level. He’d complete all the assigned readings for a week. On Friday, we’d sit down together and complete the lap book. I loved chatting with him about what he learned.

Discussions

Later I sat down with my oldest three children for an in-depth discussion of their history and literature readings.

Even preschoolers can join the Tapestry Assignments. When my youngest children were little, I skipped the history readings. But the literature readings for the lower grammar stage are simply delightful.

Just check the books out from the library for your evening read-aloud and enjoy classics such as  Blueberries for SalThe Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh, or The Complete Adventures of Curious George.

Buffet of Options

Tapestry of Grace offers an overwhelming buffet of options for the week’s history studies. You have evaluations, lapbooks, accountability questions, discussions, worksheets, maps, writing, projects and field trips suggested.

No one can do it all.

But having a buffet of possibilities allows you to customize for each child without having to juggle tons of different programs.

The Tapestry of Grace Curriculum is Easy to Customize

All the school-age children complete the reading at their level. It’s what they do with that reading that changes.

Accountability Questions

One of my kids diligently completed the accountability questions every week. If he couldn’t find the answer in the reading, he researched the question in the encyclopedia or on the internet. The Tapestry of Grace curriculum honed his research skills.

Write Papers

Another child loved to write papers. Yes, he loved to write papers. So each week he wrote me a paper on a topic of his choice from his reading in Modern History in Pictures and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to 20th-Century History.

He covered chemical warfare in WW1, the German Spring Offensive, the flu epidemic, and Stalin. It was an easy way to add more writing to his schoolwork without trying to pile all sorts of curricula on him.

Worksheets

Another child preferred worksheets. So I printed up the weekly dialectic evaluations for her to complete. Each week she filled in the information. And the evaluations cover similar topics to the accountability questions, just in a different format.

So she was happy, I was happy, and we had awesome discussions.

Lapbooks

My 4th student fell in love with lapbooking when he was in elementary school as I mentioned earlier. So he and I sat down every Friday to complete the lapbooks. We discussed the work as he filled out the various sheets.

It was a wonderful method to add a light discussion to my child’s week.

In short, Tapestry allows me to personalize my children’s education while keeping the standard high and maintaining my sanity. It improved the education I can provide my children while decreasing my workload.

Tapestry of Grace is an amazing curriculum!

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One Comment

  1. I have heard of Tapestry of Grace but I have never really checked it out. Now it has me curious and wondering if it would be a better fit for us, instead of a long day teaching two kids at different levels. I love having things laid out for me as it makes it so much easier.

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